oxen ;

my Anna Gertrude from the bottom of my heart, I have always been the master; and she has been obedient to me, as the Bible says it should be between husband and wife. Well, one day I sat at home with a few friends; we were drinking wine in the bar-room. Suddenly there entered the room an old beggar with a tremendous beard reaching down to his girdle. I laugh at the beard and rejoice over its enormous length. One of my friends, Anthony Waidlinger, the rich Amselwirth, asks me: 'Well, Andy, would you like to wear as long a beard as that?' 'Why not?' I reply merrily. Ah,' exclaims Anthony, laughing, 'you must not talk so saucily. You must not wear so long a beard. Your wife will not permit it, Andy !' This makes me very angry; I start up, and hardly know what I am doing. 'What!' I cry, 'my wife? She must obey me whether she likes it or not. What will you bet I will not shave my beard for a whole year ?' 'I will bet you two oxen,' says Anthony; 'but let me warn you, Andy, you will lose the for I stick to it, your wife will never permit you to become the laughing-stock of the children by appearing in the streets with such a lion's mane. Therefore consider the matter well, Andy, for there is time yet. Admit that you will not win the bet, for two oxen are at stake!' 'I have already considered everything,' I say; 'and as for the two oxen, they will be just what I want. A year hence you will bring them to me, Anthony Waidlinger.' And this prediction was fulfilled. I did not shave my beard, and Anna Gertrude, my wife, rejoiced at her Andy's beard instead of being angry at it, and thought it made her husband look a great deal better. When the year was up, Anthony Waidlinger drove his two oxen with a sullen air into my stable, and said: 'Now you may cut off your fur and have a pillow made from it for your wife.' 'I need not cut off my beard for that purpose,' I replied; 'it may be my wife's pillow even while it hangs down on my breast. For she is a good and dutiful wife, and I am fondly attached to her.' That, archduke, is the story of my beard, which I have worn ever since, and which has often been a pillow when my little boy and my three girls fell asleep on my lap, and under which they have often concealed their little heads when their mother was looking for them. You will

ask me no more to cut off my beard-the pillow and plaything of my children."

"No, Andreas," said the archduke, kindly, "I will not. Wear your fine beard as you have done hitherto; may it be, notwithstanding its black color, the victorious flag round which the royal Tyrolese shall rally on rising for their lord and emperor! And now, farewell, my friends; it is dawning, and it is time for us to repose a little. Go home, therefore, and what remains to be settled you may talk over to-morrow with Baron von Hormayr, who will give you money for travelling expenses, and for distribution among the innkeepers. Day after to-morrow you will set out for home, and bring to all loyal Tyrolese the joyful news that war will break out."

“Yes, yes, war will break out!" exclaimed the three Tyrolese, exultingly.

"Hush, for God's sake, hush!" said John, laughing. “You must keep quiet, and, instead of doing so, you shout as jubilantly as though you were standing on a crest of the Brenner, and had just discovered the hiding-place of a chamois. Let me therefore tell you once more it is necessary that the people of Vienna should not find out that you are in the city. Pledge me your word, then, that you will not go into the street tomorrow in the daytime, nor allow any one to see you."

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We pledge you our word!" exclaimed the Tyrolese, with one accord; " we will not appear in the street to-morrow in the daytime, and day after to-morrow we shall set out."

"Yes, we shall set out then," repeated Andreas Hofer, "and return to our mountains and friends, and wait patiently and faithfully until the day when we shall see rising to the sky the signal which is to tell us that our dear Archduke John sends us his soldiers to assist us in delivering our country from the enemy, and restoring it, with our mountains, our love, and our loyalty, to our dear Emperor Francis. God grant that we may succeed in so doing, and may the Holy Virgin pray for us all, and restore the Tyrol to the emperor!"

CHAPTER VII.

ANDREAS HOFER AT THE THEATRE.

COUNT STADION, the minister of foreign affairs, was pacing his cabinet with a quick step and an anxious expression of countenance. At times he stood still, and, bending his head toward the door, seemed to listen intently for some sound; all remaining silent outside, he commenced again striding up and down, and whenever he approached the clock on the mantelpiece he cast an anxious glance on it.

"I am afraid Hormayr was not at home," he murmured moodily to himself; "his servants did not know where he was, and therefore the mischief cannot be stopped."

He drew a golden snuff-box from his pocket and took a large pinch from it. "I said at the very outset," he murmured, "that we ought to keep aloof from these stupid peasants, who will only involve us in trouble and mischief. But those gentlemen would not listen to me, and— Really, I believe I hear footsteps in the anteroom. Yes, yes, somebody is coming!"

Count Stadion was not mistaken. The door opened, and a footman announced, in a loud voice, “Baron von Hormayr!" "Let him come in, let him come in, quick!" said Count Stadion, waving his hand impatiently; and when Hormayr appeared on the threshold of the door, he hastily went to meet him.

"In truth, it took my servants a good while to find you!" exclaimed the minister, angrily. "I have been waiting for you half an hour."

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"I was at the Archduke John's rooms, with whom I had business of importance, your excellency," said Hormayr, emphasizing his last words. Moreover, I could not guess that your excellency would wish to grant me an audience at so unusual an hour, and without my asking for it."

"At so unusual an hour!" cried Count Stadion, putting one pinch of snuff after another into his nose. “Yes, yes, at so unusual an hour! It would have been more agreeable to

me, too, if it had been unnecessary for me to trouble you and myself. But it is your own fault. You do not keep your word."

"Your excellency !" cried Hormayr, indignantly.

"Bah! it is true. You do not keep your word. You promised me that your Tyrolese should not show themselves, lest we might be charged with fomenting an insurrection; and it was necessary, also, to prevent the Bavarians from learning prematurely our plans. Can you deny that you promised this to me?"

"No, your excellency, I do not deny it at all."

"Well, your Tyrolese are running around everywhere." "Pardon me, your excellency, that cannot be true. You must have been misinformed."

"What! misinformed? How dare you say so to my face, sir? Your beardman, or bushman, or Sandwirth Hofer is at the Kärnthnerthor Theatre, and is the observed of all observers. I saw him with my own eyes; and that was the reason why I left the theatre and sent for

you.

"Your excellency saw him with your own eyes! Then, of course, it must be true, and I would beg leave of your excellency to go immediately to the theatre and take him to his hotel."

"That was just what I wished to ask you to do, Baron von Hormayr. Make haste and induce this bushman to leave Vienna immediately."

"He will leave the capital early in the morning. Your excellency will permit me now to withdraw."

Baron von Hormayr hastened down stairs, left the chancery of state, and crossed the Joseph's Place. On reaching the Kärnthnerthor Theatre, he bought a ticket at the office and entered the pit.

"The Marriage of Figaro," by Mozart, was performed at the Kärnthnerthor Theatre to-night, and this favorite opera of the Viennese had attracted so large an audience that not a seat was vacant, and the baron had to elbow his way with no little difficulty through the crowd filling the pit, in order to reach a * Count Stadion's own words.-See Hormayr's "Andreas Hofer," vol i.,

P. 209.

point where he might be able to see every part of the house, and discover him for whose sake he had come.

At length he had succeeded in advancing so far that, leaning against one of the pillars supporting the upper tiers of boxes, he was able to survey the lower part of the house. But all faces were averted from it, all eyes were fixed on the stage. The opera had just reached the scene where Count Almaviva lifts the carpet from the chair and finds Cherubino under it. A loud outburst of laughter resounded from the pit to the upper gallery. But in the midst of the din, a loud and angry voice exclaimed: "Ah, you young good-for-nothing, if I had you here I would show you how to behave!" And a threatening fist and vigorous arm was raised in the midst of the orchestrastalls.

"Good heavens ! that is really Andreas Hofer," murmured Baron von Hormayr, concealing himself anxiously behind the pillar. A renewed shout of laughter greeted Hofer's words, and all eyes turned toward the side where they had been uttered. And there sat the good Andreas Hofer, in his handsome national costume, with his long black beard, and his florid, kind-hearted face. There he sat, quite regardless of the gaze which the audience fixed upon him, utterly unaware of the fact that he was the observed of all observers, and quite engrossed in looking at the stage, where proceeded the wellknown scene between Cherubino, the count, and Figaro. He followed the progress of the action with rapt attention, and when Cherubino tried to prove his innocence by all sorts of plausible and improbable falsehoods, Hofer's brow became clouded. He averted his eyes from the stage, and turned to his neighbor. "Why," he said, loudly and indignantly, "that boy is as great a liar as though he were Bonaparte himself!"

Now the merriment of the audience knew no longer any bounds. They applauded, they shouted, "Bravo! bravo !” They forgot the scene on the stage entirely, and devoted their exclusive attention to the queer, bearded stranger in the orchestra-stall, on whom all eyes and opera-glasses were fixed.

Baron von Hormayr behind his pillar wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and cast furious glances on Andreas